IRAQ: Somewhere in Iraq a grim and ghastly auction is taking place. Phone calls are being made, prices discussed, writes Jack Fairweather in Baghdad
On sale: one Briton and two Americans, the victims of Thursday's dawn raid on their house by a gang of 20 attackers.
Kidnapping westerners has become a multi-million-euro industry in Iraq. Once the preserve of extremist thugs, the trade in hostages has been taken over by criminal gangs, selling their victims to the highest bidder.
It's become a business only loosely associated with the Iraqi extremist groups, though that's where many hostages end up.
According to security contractors, the kidnapped will change hands several times before reaching a buyer prepared to hold them to ransom or kill them.
"There are criminal groups who know there's a lot of money to be made out of catching us," said one western security contractor.
There are few figures on how much money is being made, although one western organisation is believed to have paid several hundred thousand to release four of its employees, a vast sum in war-torn Iraq.
"Somewhere down the line ransoms have been paid - and the word has got out.
"Once that happened it was only a matter of time before gangs realised they could be making a lot of money out of foreigners," said the contractor, who did not wish to be named.
Kidnappings are not new to Iraq. Since the war thousands of Iraqis have been abducted by criminal gangs.
Westerners have been targeted more recently and have often been quickly released.
Of the dozens of contractors, aid workers and journalists taken hostage during April's nationwide revolt, most were released within a few hours after cursory interrogations by so-called mujhadeen leaders dressed in Arabic head scarves.
But since then kidnappings have taken on a new level of sophistication.
When two Italian aid workers were abducted last week the gunmen were accompanied by a man in a suit, issuing orders on a mobile phone. It's a scene that former Iraqi hostages are familiar with.
"Several of the men who kidnapped me were smartly dressed like businessmen," said Abbas al-Dulaimy, who was taken hostage earlier this year.
"They quickly contacted my family and set the ransom. It was very professional." The family duly paid in full, £90,000.
In the Italian hostage crisis, the Italian government has so far publicly refused to pay a ransom. Privately it may choose to follow the path of the al-Dulaimys and other foreign companies to avoid bloodshed. The aid workers are still being held.
"The kidnapping of foreigners is a complicated business," said Col Faroq al-Jabouri, head of Baghdad's anti-kidnapping unit.
"These people [the kidnappers] are often confused. Some want the Americans to leave, others want democracy, others want money."
According to Col al-Jabouri, only one or two Iraqis are being kidnapped each week in the Baghdad area, compared with dozens six months ago.
"Iraqis see everything that is going wrong in their country. The more things go wrong the more they turn against the foreigners," said Col al-Jabouri.
The combined impact of kidnappings and insurgency has forced most westerners to flee into the US-defended international zone and nearby fortress-like hotels.
A few organisations remained outside the protected zone believing that a low profile would keep them out of trouble.
For the Briton and two Americans it was a terrible miscalculation.